Global Storage Degree Apprentice Review

As a degree apprentice at Barclays I support clients and customers in providing Storage for their data, this requires me to communicate efficiently with my team via regular meetings with managers and colleagues to ensure the handling of data and where it is being stored is kept confidential and is accessible for customers.

My confidence has grown since joining Barclays, having daily interactions with not only members of my time but colleagues from all over the world such as America and India has allowed me to expand my knowledge and how I interact with customers and peers. My time management skills have improved since joining Barclays, as expected with my role and attending university I have had to take the time to work out ways of prioritizing my time equally and with the help of my manager I have organized how to do so.

I thoroughly enjoy my programme as having university one day a week allows me to have time away from the work environment to be in a student based environment and socialize with students from different apprenticeships. I also enjoy having responsibility whilst working, since joining I now have peers who are reliant on me which makes me feel like I contribute more to the team.

My programme is very well structured. I could tell from the start Barclays and my career coach for this years apprentice cohort had thoroughly thought about the structure of programme months in advance. We have pre organized meetings weekly and monthly with managers and career coach whilst also having meetings with managers and career coaches from university all together therefore, this showed me that Barclays are always there for support and genuinely want you to succeed.

The support at Barclays is genuinely great. I have weekly meetings with my managers as well as team meetings in which they are always asking if I need support and I know I can always ask if I need anything. My career coach at Barclays has monthly meetings with each apprentice in which she will make sure we are receiving support from our team and is there for any general or academic support.

The support we receive from our training provider is really helpful. During and after university hours they are always available for extra support via chat rooms or team calls. Also, as we are each assigned a career coach from university, we have calls with both them and our Barclays line manager to talk about grades, progress, improvements whilst also taking a genuine interest in our personal lives and well being.

My qualification so far has helped me with skills in my role such as my business systems module, this focused on interactions with customers and went into depth around aspects such as target markets and how businesses run etc. The java unit also relates to my role as I use this daily.

Barclays offer a wide range of activities, due to covid this has been restricted but even still they have recently put on events such as outside socially distanced meet ups. They also, put on sponsored charity events which is open to everyone.

Yes

I feel as though Barclays has really improved my interaction and academic skills, from the support that is provided and opportunities that come with this programme I feel really lucky to have been chosen. The university course will also open lots of opportunities for me and my manager/ team are really supportive in helping me explore and find something I can really see myself doing in the future.

Be yourself, try to get as much experience before hand which would help your CV even things such as volunteer work. During the application process and assessment days be aware of how you're coming across and try to prepare by researching on some of the applications etc that Barclays use.